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phoneme
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phoneme

Distinctive unit of sound from which a language is formed. For example, /t/ and /d/ are phonemes in English because they can be used to distinguish between two words, for example ‘bad’ and ‘bat’.

Although the exact sound of /t/ varies with its phonetic context (see phonetics). Phonetically, the /t/ in the words ‘top’ and ‘stop’ is different. These variants cannot be used to distinguish between two otherwise identical words. Sound variants that do not change meaning in a given language are called allophones. The study of phonemes is called phonology.



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